Sultan
by Shaikhubaba
Summary: A mistake haunts Edward Cullen, and he is looking for redemption. When a family wedding gives him the opportunity to do so the lead singer of Sultan makes sure Isabella Swan knows his anguish and his sorrow. What surprises him are the layers behind a woman he apparently has known for 14 years and he is determined to peal each one, if she lets him.
1. PROLOGUE

**TEN YEARS AGO (PROLOGUE** )

I was determined to have a good time tonight.

Scratch that, I was hell fucking bent.

I was so determined that for the first time in my life, I was sitting in front of a mirror and carefully combing my brown hair till it dropped down like a layer of silk on my naked back. Not that I did not comb my hair often, but I didn't do it with the kind of reverence that I did today. Then again, I did not wear the kind of dress I was wearing today either; lavender, halter top, sleeveless, long flowy skirt with no back. I had even put on some light makeup thus it was safe to say it was not a normal Isabella Swan kind of day, or a normal Isabella Swan kind of do.

The one thing that remained certain in this abnormal day was my determination to have a good fucking time.

Tonight, was my best friends Alice Cullens 18th birthday, and my best friend had a taste for all things good in life. Thus, she wanted to claim adulthood by bringing glamour with a capital G back to her hometown or more specifically small town and annoyingly soaked most of the time Forks. This was granted to her by her larger than life itself parents, Dr and Mrs. Cullen; small town Forks big time heroes. Heroes because Dr. Cullen had hauled his family all the way from New York City, away from his swanky 6 figure job as a doctor at a swanky New York hospital and come back home to work at Forks in a hospital which back then was nowhere near swanky. He had brought back the hospital to life and earned the loyalty of every person in town, so did his wife and not just because she was his wife but because her soul shone with kindness, and the people of Forks noted and treasured that.

The day the Cullens moved back to Forks was the worst and the best day of my life, best day because Alice Cullen had entered my world along with her soul that shone with kindness, almost as much as her mothers. Worst day because so had Edward Cullen, Alice's twin, bane of my existence and all around asshole. Not to everyone no, but to me.

I was not deluded to understand his 'attentions' as anything more than one person being mean to another simply because they could, I also was intelligent enough to get that even though it was both of their birthdays (which they were celebrating together) and even though Alice had assured me that he was not going to pull any of his tricks today, I just knew he would. I knew it down to my very bones, but still I was determined to have tonight not just because it was her birthday but because all of us would be moving soon to our Universities and it was my last night at Forks( I was moving to UPenn tomorrow evening) and I would be damned if I let all around gorgeous, music genius, kind to everyone but me ruthless asshole take this night away from me.

My twisted acquaintance with Edward had started when the Cullens moved back to Forks in Freshmen year, and before I had seen my best friend for life I saw Edward Cullen on the first day of school. Tall and beautiful he was like the sun hitting my face after four days of continuous Forks rain. I sat there gaping at him as he entered the class and Mrs. Gibson our English teacher introduced him to everyone. I could hear collective female sighs and my heart beating erratically while my face had a goofy looking smile in place. He sat in front of me and I tried to be cool for a minute before I lost my cool, wrote him a note introducing myself and gave it to him. He took the note and read it, looked back at me and my face, gave me a once over (well as far as the seat would allow his eyes to go) which made my toes curl and then proceeded to tear the note and put it down on my bench.

I heard the snickers behind me and felt my face go hot as I stared at the torn note. I looked in front at his back and decided at that moment that Edward Cullen was not very nice and the small crush that I had on him receded. Later in the day I saw Alice sitting all by herself at lunch, at that time I did not know who she was and cautiously went to sit with her, despite the rejection I faced earlier I did not hesitate going up to her and prayed to God she would be friendly. She peered up at me and then at my hand which I had jutted forward then smiled huge when I said, "I am Isabella Swan, but you have to me call me Bella. Isabella makes me want to puke out my breakfast cereal. I don't know who you are but I am determined to make a new friend today and let me tell you rejection twice in one day will not bode well with my sunny disposition."

As she smiled her open, beautiful, dimpled smile at me with her curly black hair framing her face and shook my hand then finally said totally ignoring everything I had blabbered, "You have beautiful eyes, Bella. I am Alice," I knew Alice Cullen would be my best friend because I read everything that was her in a minute with those lines and what I could read warmed me to my very soul. I complemented her right back saying her hair kicked major booty and we became tight from then onwards.

This fateful meeting with my best friend for life was shadowed when I felt the presence of Edward at my back and his question filled with disgust, "Are you stalking me, fatty?" A horror filled gasp escaped from Alice as she screeched his name. I realised two things then and there, Edward was Alice's brother as that screech was pure and practiced annoyed sister screech, something I used often with Jasper (my next door neighbour who was as close as a brother) and that I had no respect at all for Edward Cullen. I turned around with my usual sass combined with anger and said to him, "My dad is a cop and my mother was an artist, both salt of the Earth, honest people and they told me enough times that I am beautiful, so I believed them then and I believe them now. I will not let some idiot with superiority complex belittle me especially not when I am in the middle of getting to know my future best friend. So to answer your question, no I am not stalking you because I do not even look at the people I don't respect." Then I turned back around gave Alice my number told her to call me anytime and left the table when I heard words that dampened my sunny disposition, "Bet I can make you look, and what's more make that gaze stay."

I didn't respond to that and quickly stalked out of the cafeteria.

Since then Edward and I had exchanged snide comments and had numerous fights. He gave it to me mean, rude or just annoyed I gave back to him sassy and bitchy. I never reached a breaking point because his words didn't pinch me as much as the rumours did. Edward Cullen dating Jessica Day was the rumour and it burned my very soul. The fire spread when Edward started dating her in sophomore year till Senior year, till it became a dull ever present unpleasant feeling. His barbs didn't stop though, in fact they became worse with Jessica on his side, but the love I had for him did not disappear as much as I willed it and commanded it to go. What was funny though my love for him was one of the few things I did not like about myself.

Poor Alice tried everything to make him stop, in fact Dr. Cullen also intervened from time to time when he and I exchanged words in front of him. Nothing affected or stopped him, and to be honest I got used to two things, Edward being an asshole and I being in love/hate with him despite it all. I knew there was nothing from his side, but I felt what I felt and due to this I did not date. I knew I had to be away from him to get over my love/hate thing with him, and thus I was determined to finally be free of Forks and him. This joy even overshadowed my sadness for not being around my dad and Alice twenty-four hours a day.

I heard the doorbell ring and my father talking to Jasper downstairs, who was now also Alice's boyfriend. He had come to pick me up and take me to the party. I lightly rubbed my Renee bracelet and prayed that Edward wouldn't do shit today, but as we all know unlike shit, luck eventually runs out and when it came to my interactions with him, it ran out often.

Hence my love/hate relationship with Edward, turned into pure hatred in a way I knew was irreversible after the shit he pulled at the party and my determination to have a good time disappeared to gut wrenching sobs. This was the first time our interactions had made me ball my eyes out because it was the time he took it too damned far and I knew I did not have it in me to forgive him.

It was not lost on Edward that I hated him, because he saw it on my face after the shit he pulled. What I missed on his face that day though was pure anguish as even he realised that he took it too damned far.

 _Hello friends,_

 _I have a lot of free time thus I promise (but with fingers crossed at my back) frequent uploads, or as frequent as I can make them._

 _Love you and thank you for reading._

 _PS. And I just own this plot, not Twilight._

PPS (love and write, don't plagiarise)


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1 (PRESENT DAY)

"Love a girl with a healthy appetite, Hells Bells."

I looked up and smiled at Jacob Black, my boss, badass extraordinaire, filthy minded scoundrel and all round good guy as he watched me stuff my face with pancakes and some delicious sausages. He had said that almost as an afterthought, you know when you find something unbelievably sexy and words just come out of your mouth. I know of this phenomenon because each time I see Jacob Black without a shirt on, stupid shit flies out of my mouth like it's nobody's business.

Lucky me, I see him shirtless a lot.

Mr. Black is also my crowned fuck buddy, and man my booty needed his lovin' often. What worked for with our 'arrangement' was that we knew our hearts would not get involved in it, both of us were incapable of it and what was more we considered each other friends before anything else.

I squirted some maple syrup all over my pancakes smirking and looking at him while doing it, he grinned and started making moaning noises which got a lot of attention to our table and I snorted. He leaned forward his face suddenly serious, "He escaped Hells Bells, I need you to get him back."

He called me Hells Bells for a reason, I worked for him and his boys at 'The Quileute', officially on the papers a bounty hunting firm but unofficially we were a lot of things. He recruited me straight out of UPenn, where I graduated with a degree in Computers, I was your daily whiz kid when it came to all things digital. The most interesting part was he fucking held a competition for people to join his 'firm' as he called it in the Philly region, and me being me participated. The task was to break through his firewall, I managed to do it in ten minutes and in the next fifteen minutes I had a job. The reason he called me Hells Bells because I had plastered this name on all his office computers just to show off a little.

He had loved the gesture and then Emmet (his best friend and second in command) and him proceeded to kick my ass into becoming a badass like them, not that I was a novice when I joined, Charlie was not going to set his only daughter loose on the city without teaching her a few moves. They had proclaimed that no Quileute would be anything less than a badass.

I had gladly accepted and learned a few things about myself, along with computers I was also good at profiling. In our line of work this skill was essential, so Jacob had set me loose to retrieve a few people, I tracked them down and got them back to the 'firm' where they were handed over to the authorities or to people who I kept minimum contact with.

After retrieving people from the ends of Alaska, Jacob finally assigned James to me. He was something else, sinister and downright evil. Someone who Jacob Black, alpha male extraordinaire would never assign to me simply because I was under his protection and you did not expose his kind of evil to my sweet ass (his words, not mine) but my talents could not be ignored and Jacob Black was no idiot so he understood my sweet ass could turn into hard and relentless in one second and James Aldrich would go down.

So, he set me loose on James and I found him in a secluded area at a farmhouse at Katy, Texas raping an unconscious under aged girl. He did not hear me approach, neither did her hear me jamming a syringe in his fucking neck, nor did he realise when I carted his ass back to Philly and handed him not to the fucking authorities but to people who would 'take care' of him.

I had called my contact from Houston to take of the girl who I later found from him was a foster girl with no prospects, she said he found her in local bar where she had got in with a fake Id and she knew she had mixed something in her drink. The girl was broken, not unfixable and that gave me a lot of hope, but did nothing for my deep-seated rage. My only consolation was the people that James had managed to piss off where more sinister than him.

Thus, hearing he had escaped made me drop my fork on the plate and I knew from Jacobs expression that anger had coloured my features.

"You are telling me this now, wasting my time and treating me to a fucking meal when that bastard has escaped the clutches of the fucking Philadelphia mafia. By delaying telling me you made my job ten times harder Jacob. _How long ago did he escape_!"

He looked at me and sighed, "I was not going to tell you at all Bella, I wanted Emmet to handle this. You have to go to Alice's wedding in a day. You did your part, and what's more I can sense you're getting emotional about this babe. That kind of shit does not roll when you're dealing with a cunt like him. The only reason I'm coming to you because you managed to do it the first time, Emmet came back empty handed today and I knew if I delayed it any further your brain would explode. He escaped about a week ago."

My fingers curled as I willed myself to calm down and poured the acid bubbling in my chest at him, "Do not tell me I am getting emotional when you are in knee deep in denial Jacob, you did not act as my boss you acted as my lover by not telling me, and _baby that shit don't roll._ You knew I was your best bet, but you let your heart lead Jacob and I kid you not I do not find this shit touching, I find it insulting. I know that bastards every trick in the book, I know why he breathes the way he does, and you tell me a week later. _A fucking week later_!"

Whispering the last party angrily I left my food and stalked out of the diner to my car, driving straight to the office.

XXXXXXXXX

Emmet shifted uncomfortably in front of me while he gave me the briefing, he told me the slippery bastard has escaped his clutches somewhere near New Jersey. I was glaring daggers at him and asked, "Why did you not tell me Emmet?"

"Babe I tried, I really did. The big bastard was not ready to listen to reason, said his girl had to attend a wedding and he'd be damned if he let a criminal ruin that for her. I told him he was not thinking clearly. He had the balls to tell me that if it were Rose I would have done the same. It's the God honest truth I would have, but one thing I don't get Hells Bells, are you both in that deep?"

I gaped at him as my heart hammered in my chest, I knew if I asked Emmet he would give it to me straight. I did not anticipate his answer, so my mouth went dry and panic gripped me. Fuck I did not anticipate this answer.

That's when I felt Jacob's energy entering the room and I stiffened and turned around glaring at him, "When did it happen huh _lover_ , when did you decide to overturn our promise. When the fuck did you think, it would be okay for you to overstep that boundary."

He crossed his massive tatted arms on his broad chest and frowned at me and then said, "Don't flatter yourself Bella, you know that ship has sailed for us. You know that my heart is in the hands of a woman I fucking despise. So, it's safe to say I do not think of you as anything more than a friend. Don't misunderstand me Bella, you mean the world to me. You're my best friend and I do not want to see you hurt. You are important to me, you are under my protection. I gave the rat bastard the Rosalie analogy because that would be the only way _he would fucking understand_."

The tension slowly left my body and I got up and wrapped my arms around his still shift shoulders, "I am sorry, but you are still an idiot.''

I took a deep breath and then said, "You know I've been burned babe, and I am a pussy when it comes to this shit. Sorry I overreacted."

He relaxed and hugged me close meanwhile glaring daggers at Emmet who unbeknownst to me was looking grim and mildly apologetic. I pushed away from him and said with utmost confidence, "He's a rat, and only one place in this beautiful country where rats thrive. He is in New York City."

Jacob sighed, "Then it's good the wedding is there, Hells Bells."

XXXXXXX

I walked into my beautiful apartment, discarded all my clothes and went into the shower. Warm water cascaded down my body and my brain activated into overdrive. I was leaving for New York tomorrow, which meant after 10 years of no contact I would be seeing Edward Cullen for the first time. I was afraid of love sure, but I no longer despaired at the thought of facing Edward Cullen, not after I have spent 7 long years tracking down actual cunts and seeing and hearing Edwards songs and face everywhere I went.

I reflected on my actions in the office and sighed, Jacob's reasons were all sound. Over-fucking-protective but sound. My panic at Emmets words were something that bothered me, I did not want to be afraid forever to fall in love or freeze up when even a little bit of affection came into the picture. So, I decided the first chance I would get I was getting an appointment with a therapist. Ten years too late I realise that, but I needed to go.

I wrapped a towel around my body and stalked out of the room and landed face first in my large bed. One rule I had was I was not going to bring my work back at home and especially not a serial rapist and oily bastard James Aldrich so I turned around switched on my television and watched a show about second chances. I licked my lips and heard my phone beep,

Can't wait 2 see you tommrw :*

I smiled at Alice's text and got shit excited, I was seeing my best friend with her kind soul after a long time and my heart again warmed and I slept with a smile on my face.

 _Hello friends,_

 _Sorry for all the grammar errors, promise what Edward did will be revealed in the next chapter. Let me know what you think._

 _PS: (I own this plot, not Twilight)_

 _PPS: (love and write, don't plagiarise)_


End file.
